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This table provides population information for the fifteen successor states of the Soviet Union. While these figures do not provide a breakdown by national composition within each independent state, they do reveal the range in the sizes of these new states. The break up of the Soviet Union presented each population and government with unique challenges that were also shaped by the common….

This table provides a general overview of the Soviet population in 1970, with a breakdown for the most populous national groups. As the table indicates, Russian were by far the largest single ethnic group, yet they still made up less than one-half of the total population of approximately 240 million people. As this table also indicates, several national groups with their "own" national republic….

Czechoslovaks watched the unfolding of perestroika [restructuring] in the Soviet Union and its slow introduction into their own economy with great interest, although there were obstacles to doing so. While the Czechoslovak Communist Party was ready to start experimenting with economic perestroika, it maintained reservations about glasnost [openness or publicity]. It suppressed reports about….

Once in power, Mikhail Gorbachev began a reform process that followed two paths: perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost' (openness). In order to reform the Soviet economy, Gorbachev believed it was necessary to cut spending on the Soviet military, both inside Soviet borders and throughout Eastern Europe. In both 1986 and 1987, Gorbachev proposed army reductions in summit meetings with….

The 1980s posed many challenges for the everyday lives of the average citizens of East Europe countries, including daily difficulties created from shortages. Buying such necessities as food, clothing, and hygiene products was recurring obstacle to the average consumer. Food shortages were the result of declining agricultural production, which particularly plagued the Soviet Union. This chart….

The information presented in this table highlights some of the ambiguities regarding the position of the Roman Catholic Church in the Polish People's Republic. The basic message in these data is that Catholicism thrived between WWII and the 1990s. These decades saw an expanding network of parishes and a dramatic surge in the construction of church buildings. However, by comparing the last….